Research Topic: “ Housing in Chicago”

Name: Arian Hedayat

Student Number: 500853935

Course Title: CHST118 – The City in History

Instructor: Dr. Diana Cucuz

Submission Date: 2021-05-25

The Essay Outline

General City and Topic/Theme: Housing in Chicago

More specific: African American housing in Chicago, 1990 – 2000

Research question: Between 1990-2000, how did the migration of the African Americans to North affect the population and housing in Chicago?

Thesis statement: Despite the establishment of the settlement of du Sable in the 1780s, black Americans became a community in the 1840s. By the 1860s, the African Americanblack population was at 1,000, whereby the majority of whom these blacks comprised escaped slaves from the Upper South. After Reconstruction in 1877, blackAfrican Americans flowed from the Deep South into Chicago, thus increasing the population from about 4,000 in 1870 to 15,000 in 1890. In the 1990s, the population of Chicago “rallied,” leading to the establishment of large black segregated neighborhoods. Comment by Diana Cucuz: A bit awkwardly put for an opening line, if that’s what you may use it as. I would rephrase this or perhaps just include it later in your paper for historical context. Comment by Diana Cucuz: Include full name Comment by Diana Cucuz: This is a big jump in historical context. For your thesis statement just get straight to your point. Include this information later as it’s largely unnecessary in your introduction. Include it in your next paragraph. It also becomes the case where the reader doesn’t know what your argument idea, because I am very unclear on that, nor do I know what your supporting evidence will be

Supporting Evidences:

1. Chicago experienced the redevelopment of Cabrini-Green public housing.

· There was construction of Cabrini-Green houses due to the northward migration of Southern African Americans.

· The houses had poor planning, physical deterioration, managerial neglect, home to gangs, among other organized crimes.

· These houses became a large public housing site, especially on the northern side of Chicago.

2. Chicago City witnessed the rising and declining of black American-based ghettos.

· The separation in the U.S. cities between 1890 to 1990 led to the emergence of slams or ghettos from1890 to 1940. – again, a huge time frame here

· Chicago grew at a fast rate in which its outskirts of expanses became entirely occupied by black housing.

· Between 1940 to 1970, black people’s migration persisted, and the physical areas of Chicago expanded into ghettos.

· Whites excluded African Americans from their residential areas.

3. Blacks participated in housing matters in the inner city of Chicago.

· The influence of black public housing was due to the motivation of Chicago’s tenants.

· The tenants participated in an action to curb black housing deterioration in Chicago’s housing debate.

· Black Americans sold their houses to tenants to allow them to take part in the city’s community to enhance the motive to prevent housing deterioration.

I would like you to resubmit this Arian, focusing on a more specific time frame (the turn of the century, during one of the two Great Migrations, the 1980s/1990s, for example), articulating your argument more clearly in your intro, as well as your supporting evidence.

Perhaps you can focus on any of the following:

The impact of either the First or Second Great Migrations on Chicago’s black populations and communities

Why AA chose to migrate

The positive experiences, or difficulties AA experienced after migration

Chicago’s AA communities from the 1970s to 1990s (post migrations)

Please resubmit your annotated bibliography accordingly (i.e. choose your sources according to the specific historical time frame that you decide to focus on)

Discrimination and segregation amongst whites and AA in housing, occupations and/or education

Please resubmit no later than May 31 @9am.

The Annotated Bibliography

1. Bennett, Larry. “Do we really Wish to Live in a Communitarian City?: Communitarian Thinking and the Redevelopment of Chicago’S Cabrini-Green Public Housing Complex.” Journal of Urban Affairs 20, no. 2 (1998): 99-116.

The article studies the redevelopment of Cabrini-Green public housing in Chicago. The article’s author states that poor African Americans occupied some areas of Chicago city in the 1990s. According to this article, this poor population formed Chicago’s Black Metropolis in 1993. These black-dominated areas adopted the construction of Cabrini-Green houses that had poor planning, physical deterioration, managerial neglect, home to gangs, among other organized crimes. These black population houses became a large public housing site, especially on the northern side of Chicago.

2. Cutler, David M, Edward L Glaeser, and Jacob L Vigdor. “The Rise and Decline of the American Ghetto.” The Journal of Political Economy 107, no. 3 (1999): 455-506.

The research article studies the rising and declining of black American-based ghettos in Chicago. The separation in the U.S. cities between 1890 to 1990 led to the emergence of slams or ghettos from1890 to 1940. These ghettos became black race-dominated since African Americans migrated to urban areas. Cities such as Chicago grew at a fast rate in which its outskirts of expanses became entirely occupied by black housing. Between 1940 to 1970, black people’s migration persisted, and the physical areas of Chicago expanded into ghettos since whites excluded African Americans from their residential areas.

3. McDonald, John F. “Minority Groups in the Metropolitan Chicago Housing Market: 1970–2015.” Urban Studies (Edinburgh, Scotland) 55, no. 11 (2018): 2431-2450.

This article provides a detailed summary of Chicago’s metropolitan housing market between 1970 to 2015. The focus of the housing is on black Americans, regarded as the minority group in Chicago along with Asians and Hispanics. Between 1970 to 2000, the African American population of the city increased rapidly. This increase contributed to suburban growth in the central city in which black Americans became a large minority population in the suburbs. Black American areas of concentrated traditional housing remain. Still, with an increase of the majority group’s population around the downtown neighborhoods, most of the nearby conventional black American housing has been brought down.

4. Reingold, David A. “Public Housing, Home Ownership, and Community Participation in Chicago’s Inner City.” Housing Studies 10, no. 4 (1995): 445-469.

In the article, Reingold (1995) researches the participation of blacks in housing matters in the inner city of Chicago. The influence of these black public housing had increased the motivation of Chicago’s tenants. These tenants participated in an action to curb black housing deterioration in Chicago’s housing debate. Thus, the article establishes that some black Americans sold their houses to tenants to allow them to take part in the city’s community to enhance the motive to prevent housing deterioration. Overall, the author’s findings are that the residents (black tenants) of Chicago’s inner?city public housing participated in city affairs like their inner?city homeowners’ counterparts.

5. Roberts, E. M. “Neighborhood Social Environments and the Distribution of Low Birthweight in Chicago.” American Journal of Public Health (1971) 87, no. 4 (1997): 597-603.

https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/pdf/10.2105/AJPH.87.4.597

The above article gives comprehensive research on African Americans’ neighborhood housing and their distribution in Chicago. This population lived in crowded housing areas of the city, especially in the 1990s. Among the city’s overall neighborhoods, those dominated by blacks had the most acute and puzzling housing problems. The article author posits the presence of a new urban underclass. This underclass had primary characteristics as concentrated poverty and social dislocation, thereby making the black population in the city different from the rest of city societies.